


and you shall find

by olavidalo



Series: 1. 2. 3. [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Assault, Brief Ableism, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pining, Powerplay, Prejudice, Shaming of Some Sort, Various Internalized Phobias, dub-con bordering on non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 12:12:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olavidalo/pseuds/olavidalo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry is a people-pleaser, is his problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and you shall find

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. All lies. Un-beta'ed, un-britpicked lies. Also:  
> A+ = A tee's = 80s  
> O+ = O plus = Opies  
> 

The new 80 in his art class gives him a stick of gum, once, when he's staring down at his blank pad hard. Thinking, of course, about Harry.  
  
Zayn looks at him for so long that he goes red. 'Thanks,' Zayn says, slowly, but he turns it into a Harry statement at the last moment, by accident. Does his breath smell or--?  
  
'Just looked a little down, is all,' he explains, scratching his neck. 'My mum says gum's good for chewing through your problems.'  
  
Not even an entire roll of gum tape would be enough to get Zayn through Harry. 'Well, thanks, bro,' he repeats, touched, then adds, when the other boy makes to turn away: 'M'name's Zayn. You're new, right?'  
  
'Oh, I go by Liam, actually,' he jokes, horribly. Zayn huffs out a laugh. Liam's blush widens along with his smile. 'Sorry, that was lame.'

'Not the worst I've heard,' Zayn admits, then moves his bag off the seat next to his so Liam can sit down.

 

* * *

 

Harry likes Liam, of course. But then, Harry likes everyone. He doesn't ask how they met - Zayn tells him anyway - he doesn't do anything stupid or heavyhanded like make Zayn wear his jacket so he doesn't smell like other 80s. He doesn't punish Zayn by telling him he can't wank himself off for a week. (Okay, that last probably wouldn't happen outside of a cheesy porno anyway.)  
   
Harry barely even looks at Zayn, not even when he's dropping him home. Just a quick handsqueeze - then he's driving off.  
  
Zayn thought things would get better once Harry claimed him, thought he wouldn't wake up hard and leaking and empty inside. If he'd known it would've ended up like this - with not even Louis to hide behind and nothing to show for it - he would've just kept his fucking mouth shut.

 

* * *

 

Harry is a people-pleaser, is his problem.  
  
He's always looked out for Zayn, ever since they were little. If someone tried to pull rank and order Zayn around, Harry would just laugh and smile until he'd made a new friend. He was so friendly and so agreeable and so _pretty_ that Zayn didn't know they weren't the same until Harry's eighth birthday, when Zayn found himself walking home from the masjid an hour early in the melting snow, simply because Harry told him to call at noon on the dot.  
  
There was something really quite different, wasn't there, about doing something, not for yourself, but because you wanted to make someone else happy. It was something of a feedback loop - thinking about making them happy made you happy, and thinking about how happy they'd be when they saw _you_ made you even happier. And up until Zayn fainted into a pile of sludge and snow, he could honestly say that the happiest moment of his life was shuffling by the side of the road in soaked socks, thinking about how pleased Harry would be.  
  
Zayn ended up sick in bed with a fever for three days. Harry got an hours-long lecture he told Zayn all about that first night (because Zayn wouldn't stop crying until he got to speak with him, not because of any wheedling on Harry's part): 'I'm really sorry, Zayn, I wasn't even thinking.' He sounded really guilty. At the time, Zayn didn't know how to tell him he didn't have to be, that Zayn'd liked it, really. 'Mum always says whelps are really very sensitive to claiming but I--I guess I never really believed her.'  
  
'--whelp?' he repeated, a stone in his throat, stunned, a little, that Harry could say it so easily. About him. _To_ him.  
  
'Oh, sorry, was that rude?' Harry said. 'I didn't mean it as an insult. I just meant--Opies, you know.'  
  
'Sure, yea,' Zayn said, faintly, and stared dizzily up at the ceiling fan for a long time after his mum put him to bed.  
  
 _Whelp_. The littlest one, the laziest one, the neediest one.  
  
Well. No way was he going to prove the stereotype. Not if that's how Harry would think of him.

 

* * *

 

Weakness is getting what you want, he knows. Weakness is giving in.

 

* * *

 

When Doniya chose to become his watcher, one of the first things she told him was to never cede ground, no matter who he was with. She wasn't like their mum, at all - she was _progressive_ , and always got upset whenever the oldheads would get going about 'provocation'.  
  
'If Opies are really as weak as everybody says they are,' she told him, the summer Harry's family went to the sea, after a tall neighbourhood girl tackled Zayn and held him down, 'then there wouldn't be all of these laws about 'em.' She dabbed the cut on his face and ruffled his hair, pulling him into a hug when he started shaking. 'You're not a wh--weakling, Zaynie. You're strong, promise. That's why they're scared of you. That's why they have to scare you.'  
  
Zayn didn't feel strong, not then, and not later, when he let the girl - Jessie - kiss him again and again in her treehouse until his head was all fogged up and dizzy with the smell of her, with how much she wanted him.  
  
'Like that, bitch?' she whispered, fingers twisted up and wonderful inside of him, 'that get you wet, hm?' and he nodded and nodded until it felt like his head was going to fall off.  
  
Saying no never crossed his mind.

 

* * *

 

He really is needy, though.  
  
And Harry's a people-pleaser and he's half-way observant, so of course he's picked up on how hard up Zayn is for him. Zayn knows Harry doesn't actually--doesn't actually want him all that much. Is just being kind. Agreeable. It's his way.  
  
Zayn doesn't care, feels reckless with how little he cares every time Harry slots their hands together.  
  
Harry never pushes him any further than hand-holding, never suggests that he's not perfectly content with near-preserving the status quo. Never does anything.  
  
Once, when Zayn's feeling particularly lousy, Louis talks over his head, suggests Harry give him a proper fucking to get it out of his system. Harry hardly even blinks. He smiles, actually. So Zayn smiles, too, even though Liam doesn't seem to find it very funny.  
  
If Harry were really his -- if he were really Harry's -- he wouldn't stand for it, wouldn't let Louis talk like that. But it's different, when you're just friends.  
  
If this is all there'll ever be between them, he thinks, he's fine with it. So long as Harry looks at him, and touches him, and at least pretends to want him--he couldn't possibly want for more. Or ask for more.  
  
It's enough.


End file.
